2-bus crash puts 14 students in hospital

2-bus crash puts 14 students in hospital

Nick Smith/The Explorer, Fourteen students and two bus drivers were taken to the hospital for minor injuries after the two buses collided at the intersection of Tangerine Road and the frontage road just west of Interstate 10.

More than a dozen children were hospitalized after two school
buses and a truck collided with each other last Friday morning near
Tangerine Road and Interstate 10.

Just after 7 a.m., a Marana school bus driven by Raymond Tash
turned north onto the frontage road next to the interstate and into
the path of a second bus being driven by Lynnette Hill. Hill tried
to swerve, but hit the side of the turning bus. A pickup truck
heading south also tried to swerve out of the way, but clipped the
second bus, according to Sgt. Chris Warren, a spokesperson with the
Marana Police Department.

Both buses were filled with students and bound for Marana Middle
School.

Five students and the two bus drivers were taken to Northwest
Medical Center with minor injures. After the remaining 81 students
were taken to a makeshift triage at the middle school cafeteria,
another nine students were taken to the hospital for minor
injuries. The driver of the truck was uninjured.

Later last Friday afternoon, the drivers and students were
released from the medical center.

Marana Police ticketed Tash, a driver with the district since
February, for failing to yield for a right-hand turn. Both Tash and
Hill, who has worked for the district since 1995, will go through
drug and alcohol testing, in accordance with district policy, said
Tamara Crawley, a school system spokesperson.

The school district a few years ago began requiring students to
wear seatbelts on school buses.

“If the kids did not have seat belts on, we would’ve seen more
injures and more serious,” Northwest Fire Capt. Adam Goldberg
said.

Most of the injuries were “bumps and bruises,” Goldberg
said.

The last time two Marana school buses were involved an accident
came in 1993 when a school bus and a special needs bus collided at
the intersection of Camino de Oeste and Massingale Road, Goldberg
said.

The buses involved in last week’s crash had bent frames and
broken windows. They were towed to the Marana school bus depot
where the district and Department of Public Safety officials will
conduct a more in-depth crash investigation, Crawley said.

Though the area near Tangerine and the frontage roads was closed
just after the incident, construction to install crosswalks and
stoplights at the intersection continued.

“Right now the investigation is indicating that construction
wasn’t a factor,” Sgt. Warren said.